The Troubles of Humanity
by Bronze Cat
Summary: It's hard to be a human. It's even harder when you have spent fifteen years as a wildcat, and suddenly you are expected to be a human again.


Nancy was running. She was free, free as a bird, sprinting through the long grass as fast as her legs could carry her. She was leaving the others far behind her! They could never hope to run on their two legs as fast as she could on her four! She was unstoppable! Her eyes focused on a tree in the distance and a bird on a high branch. She was going to leap up the tree and snatch the bird. She ran for it and leapt-

_Wham! _Her body slammed straight into the trunk and she fell back into the grass.

"By Aslan! You alright, Nance?" Peter laughed as he caught up with her.

She blinked a few times and propped herself up on her elbows. "Yeah, just a bit winded," she said. "Forgot who I was for a moment."

"You aren't a cat anymore! Takes us humans a little longer to climb trees!" Edmund chuckled.

"Yeah," she said and climbed back to her feet. Her curtain of hair hid her face as she dusted herself down and then followed them again at a run. It wasn't long before she had run into yet another tree and had to be carried back to a rather confused Macready to be patched up.

* * *

><p>Nancy sighed as she skimmed through the book and placed the end of the pencil between her teeth. Thanks to the extended stay in Narnia, she could now read and write much better than when she went in the Wardrobe but her maths skills were still mediocre. If she could improve them before she got back to London, it could only benefit her family.<p>

The Professor and Peter occasionally gave her some help but she preferred to work it out by herself.

Susan knocked on the door of her workroom and smiled at her.

"Tea?" she asked, gesturing with the tray in her hands.

"Please," Nancy said wearily.

The older girl crossed the threshold and placed the tray on the table. She poured Nancy a cup of tea and placed it on the table next to her before leaning over her shoulder to look at her work.

"Yuck, long multiplication. Horrible," she said.

"Mmm," Nancy agreed. She didn't stop scratching numbers as she leant down and began to lap at the tea. A gentile cough from Susan brought her back to her senses. She sat up stiffly, wiped her upper lip and forced a laugh of embarrassment out as if it had just been a silly mistake.

* * *

><p>Lucy pushed open the door to the lounge they shared but froze as she saw Nancy. The other girl was asleep on a sofa as was her custom at this time of day. Yet, the way she was asleep was so reminiscent of the way she would sleep at Cair Paravel that Lucy could not help but giggle. She was draped across the cushions, her boots kicked off and her socked feet sticking awkwardly over one arm of the sofa. As Lucy watched, her hands twitched and her face flickered into a snarl. Lucy giggled again as she realised Nancy was chasing something.<p>

The snap of the door being pulled to woke Nancy with a start. She stared up at the ceiling for a moment and then lifted her hands up. She stared at them and then rolled onto her side. She pressed her face into the cushions and tried her hardest not to cry.

It was such a disappointment to see hands instead of paws.

* * *

><p>Breakfast was always a quiet affair. Mrs Macready had long given up trying to get the children to speak and instead took the opportunity to sort through the morning post.<p>

"Letter for you, Nancy," she said and passed the letter down to her. The others watched as she opened it and her face slowly paled.

"Excuse me," she said and left them, her food barely touched.

She walked out into the gardens and sat beneath her favourite tree to read the letter from her sister again. Her fingers stroked the marks Dot's tears had made on the paper. Her eyes lingered on the last words.

_Please come home, Nance. I don't know what I am going to do and Mam can't even bring herself to look at me, let alone speak to me. I need you so badly. I don't know how much longer I can cope._

It did not take her long to make a decision. She didn't remember walking up to the house but, next thing she knew, she was in front of the Professor's study door. With a deep breath, she knocked on the door and he bid her enter.

"Nancy!" he said, looking up from his work and smiling widely when he saw her. "How splendid. Do you have some more problems for me to correct for you?"

"No, sir. I've come to tell you that I shall 'ave to be leavin' you come Monday. Me family needs me in London," she said.

He laid down his pen and regarded her carefully over the top of his glasses. "Oh dear. This is very serious. Nancy, you were sent away for a reason. If you go back to London, you could die."

"Do you think I am not aware of that?"

And now he gaped at her. He did not gape at her because of the words she had spoken but the manner with which she had just spoken them. It was not in the East-End accent he was now accustomed to hearing but in almost perfect Received Pronunciation, exactly like the other children.

She smiled weakly at him. "Listen to me, Digory. Listen to how I talk. I now have to force the accent I was born to. If I do return home and speak like this then what is everyone going to think? And there's the other problem..."

She bowed her head and stared at her hands folded neatly before her then laughed half-heartedly.

"What other problem? Are you referring to the people at home? Surely a bright young girl like yourself should be able to come up with some story if your accent slips? You have spent enough time around us _posh knobs,_ I would have thought," Digory said. Her mouth did not even twitch at his jibe.

"A bright, young, girl," she said softly. "That's just it."

She met his gaze. "I suppose Peter explained to you about what happened to them. How they became Kings and Queens and ruled over the land; and how I was their loyal subject, their Spy-Master. Their... not-exactly-human Spy-Master."

Realisation dawned in his eyes and he sat back in his chair. "You were a cat. And a cat's lifespan is so much shorter than a human's..."

She nodded. "I was old, Digory, so old," she said, smiling sadly. "I may look like a young girl on the outside but, inside, I think I might be older than you are. I was ready to die. I was an old lady just living day to day; waiting for Aslan to take me on the Final Hunt. It never came and now I am back here and suddenly I have an entire life before me again. I have a chance at a second life but I'm not sure if I want it. I felt so fulfilled..."

She sniffed and shook her head. "I'm sorry," she said, a sob breaking out of her, "but I can't stay here. I can't stay here with _them_. All they do is talk about how wonderful it was. All they do is tease me when I slip up and act like a cat instead of a girl. All they do is reminisce about the past and wonder if they will ever go back and I can't do that. My family needs me and they need me now. I can't dwell on memories; no matter how wonderful they are. I need to leave."

"Nancy," he said after a long pause. "If you really want to go then I won't stop you but it must be your own decision. However, if you feel that the Pevensies are making you feel uncomfortable, I beg you not to leave. Please, speak to them."

She laughed airily. The sound was so fake and sad that his heart broke for her.

"I could never do that," she said. "I'm their servant; and a good servant never bothers their masters with their troubles."

Her shoulders began to shake and then she completely broke down in front of him. He left his desk and enveloped her in his arms.

As she clung to him and sobbed, he could have sworn that he was not holding a young girl.

He could have sworn that he held a frail, old woman in his arms.

* * *

><p>Susan and Lucy awoke the next day to see Nancy's bed empty and neatly made. As they ran through to their brothers to say she was missing, Nancy waited at the station for the first train back to London. Her sister's letter was clutched tightly in her hand.<p>

They didn't need her any more, she told herself firmly. Other people needed her now.

As she saw the train round the bend in the tracks, she shut her eyes and thought for the final time of Narnia and how it was to run with the grass beneath her paws. And then she let the memories go.

However, upon disembarking from the train in London, she was shoved rudely to the ground by a vulgar man who was complaining loudly about being lat for his Very Important Meeting. She turned and growled at him, growled like a cat, and something deep inside her growled too.

As he rushed off, muttering about lunatics, Nancy Dempsey picked herself up. The cat inside her hissed and spat and she realised her problems were far from over. The troubles of humanity were vast and daunting and she would have to fight every day to remind herself that she was human.

* * *

><p><strong>Please don't read too much into <em>a good servant never bothers their masters with their troubles<em>. It is partly based on the dying ideals of the time that the servants were there to make the master's life easier and partly Nancy being silly. If she had spoken to the Pevensies then I think they would have listened to her and stopped teasing her, especially as they consider her more of a friend than a servant.**


End file.
